The Culture Show Podcast

What is it like to travel the world as a blind person–navigating different cultures, traditions and transportation systems? That’s what Dr. Mona Minkara explores in her travel documentary series, “Planes, Trains and Canes.” After losing her sight, Minkara came to believe that vision is more than sight. And her vision has been to reimagine the travel show by highlighting stories of people who have...

The Irish dramatist Conor McPherson wrote and directed a play incorporating 20 songs by Bob Dylan. This is no jukebox musical. And though it is set in Dylan’s hometown of Duluth, Minnesota it’s no bio-musical either. It’s titled “Girl From the North Country.” Set in 1934, the Dylan songs upon which McPherson draws convey the desperation and existential aching of Depression-era America. With the Br...

Oppenheimer was the bomb at last night's Oscars, winning seven awards including best picture, best actor and best director. Joyce Kulhawik and Lisa Simmons are here for an Oscars recap, going through all the slights, stunners and the usual suspects. And, in August 1969, as many as half a million people gathered at a farm in upstate New York to hear music. What happened was more than a concert. It...

Coming up on The Culture Show, it’s our Arts and Culture Week-in-Review First up, could the State House become more of an art house? Governor Maura Healey has signed an executive order creating a culture advisory council to find ways to cultivate the Commonwealth’s arts and culture sector. Plus, RuPaul is running on all four cylinders with a book bus touring the country, delivering LGBTQ plus book...

From Abigail Adams, to grandmothers, to the brains that made breakthroughs in science, we’re marking Women’s History Month with the monuments and murals in Boston memorializing women. Julia Swanson of the Art Walk Project leads the way. From there, is A Midsummer Night’s Dream the perfect Shakespeare starter play? With a romantic tangle, an enchanted forest ruled by fairies, a Donkey and late nigh...

What should reparations in Boston look like? A new report from Embrace Boston suggests that repairing generations of inequality and inequity will take more than monetary amends. It will take a wholesale and holistic approach, which includes amplifying and integrating Black History, black representation and the Black Boston of today into the arts and culture landscape. Imari Paris Jeffries, Preside...

Coming up on The Culture Show : scaling down Ibsen’s sprawling five act play to a mere 75 minutes. That’s the challenge writer, director and composer Bill Barclay took on when the Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned him to downsize Peer Gynt, a giant of a play with incidental music composed by Edvard Grieg . This adaptation premiered at the BSO in 2017, now Barclay is back with an updated versi...

Father Columba Stewart. He is a Benedictine monk and scholar who travels the most volatile parts of the world to rescue and protect ancient documents. As we continue our series of conversations with the people on the frontlines of conflict zones saving art, culture and heritage sites from ruin, Father Columba joins us to talk about his mission. From there it’s the battle of the book. The Boston Pu...

“The Band's Visit” is one of the most captivating musicals about…nothing. The Tony-winning show follows the adventures of a touring Egyptian band stranded in an Israeli village. With nowhere for the musicians to stay, the locals take them in for the night. The overriding sentiment of “The Band’s Visit” is captured in the song Something Different: Quote, “Nothing is as beautiful as something that y...

We cross into the underworld by way of “Eurydice.” It’s a hell raising opera, truly. With music by Matthew Aucoin and based on the play “Eurydice,” by Sarah Ruhl, it’s a retelling of the myth of Orpheus, from the perspective of his bride. In this adaptation we follow Eurydice’s descent into the underworld, where her encounters are humorous, and heartbreaking–especially when she reunites with her f...

Understanding American history means knowing Black history. And in Boston, that history has been made more visible by way of the African American Trail Project. Tufts University professor Kerri Greenidge joins us to talk about what went into mapping historic African-American sites in Boston and beyond. From there, it’s into the wild world of artist Raqib Shaw. He uses porcupine quills and enamel t...

Coming up on The Culture Show: does Washington have policy down to a fine art? The White House convened its first-ever arts summit, working with artists and arts organizations on how the arts can enrich society–from public spaces to public discourse. Mary Grant, President of MassArt was there. She joins us for her take on that and more. From there, for Boston-based architect Daniel Steger, the phr...

When Reginald Dwayne Betts was 16 years old, he was an honors student. He was also arrested for carjacking. Prosecuted as an adult, he spent eight years in a Virginia prison, existing among grown up men. What got him through those years behind bars? Books. Betts left prison a poet; he then became an Ivy League-educated Lawyer and now he’s on a mission to bring libraries into prisons with a first-o...

It’s our arts and culture week in review. Beyonce does the Texas two step onto the country music charts, landing the top spot with her hit “Texas Hold Em. And despite his pathology of antisemitism, racism and homophobia, the artist formerly known as Kanye West makes a controversial chart-topping comeback with his latest album. And, some speculate that the song Hotel California is a metaphor for pr...

Summertime, and the living is easy. Or, if you’re Audra McDonald, you make it look and sound easy. The award winning singer and actor earned her fifth – of a record-breaking six– Tony awards for her portrayal of Bess in the Broadway hit “The Gershwins Porgy and Bess,” which was mounted right here at The American Repertory Theater. On Tuesday she returns to Boston in a one-night-only engagement at...

Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola joins us to mark Black History Month. We’ll discuss her poem inspired by the book Beloved and a mother’s agonizing decision. From there, theater artist P Carl. He built a career, a marriage and a life as queer woman. But all the while he had a yearning to become more fully realized. For him that meant transitioning to another gender. He wrote about the transfo...

I’m Jared Bowen, this is The Culture Show. In Gish Jen’s latest book, “Thank You Mr. Nixon,” Jen writes about US-China Relations. Today she joins us from Shanghai, using her recent cultural experiences as a window into East-West relations, from the Broadway hit, “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812,” to a blockbuster of a show featuring Leonardo da Vinci. From there we talk to two renown...

It’s hard to imagine Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art without the visionary Jill Medvedow, but that’s what we have to do–she’s stepping down at the end of the year. We’ll talk about her legacy and what’s next. After that, co-host Callie Crossley pores over the history of cocktails and how modern day mixology and classic concoctions are rooted in centuries of African American history.

It’s our arts and culture week in-review and we’ll start with some Friday afternoon quarterbacking: looking at the cultural touchdowns that were made during last week’s Super Bowl, from Queen Bee creating country controversy with her two new songs, to Ben Affleck and the DunKings releasing a single and selling out their Dunkin’ inspired tracksuits along the way. How do you like them donuts? From t...

From the poetry of Phyllis Wheatley, to the technicolor tapestries of Napoleon Jones-Henderson, to Terry Lynne Carrington’s contemporary beats, Boston’s Black art and culture is everyone’s art and culture. It’s also central to Boston’s Black History which is the city’s history. With Embrace Boston’s Imari Paris Jeffries leading the way, we’ll observe Black History Month, with a focus on the import...

Composer Joseph Schwantner’s “New Morning for the World” is bold and buoyant and as eloquent as the words it honors–from selected texts by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. This Friday at Symphony Hall, the attorney, author, and civil rights activist Anita Hill will be making her orchestral debut, narrating Dr. King’s words in Boston Conservatory Orchestra's Black History Month concert, which includes...

Artist Wu Tsang goes deep on Moby Dick, literally and figuratively with an immersive film installation that takes us into the depths of the ocean. But her interpretation of Moby Dick is from the whale’s perspective. Entitled “Of Whales,” on view at the ICA starting February 15th, it’s part of Wu Tsang’s Moby Dick trilogy, which premiered at the Venice Biennale two years ago. We’ll talk to the arti...

The US Military and the Smithsonian have revived a version of “the monuments-men.-”-- the group of soldiers and military personnel who recovered cultural artifacts and artworks looted by the Nazi regime during World War II. In the 21st century, modern warfare has wreaked havoc on cultural institutions and heritage sites from Bagdahd, to Kiev, to Gaza and beyond. We’ll talk to Cori Wegener, whose w...

Seiji Ozawa led the Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly 30 years. Taking it from the 20th to the 21st century. He was a force–a maverick whose awesome talent for interpreting music stopped legends like Bernstein cold–making Ozawa one in his own right. WCRB’s Brian McCreath joins us to remember the maestro, the man, his musicality and his legacy in Boston and the world over. From there, it’s Greek...

For Nadia Liu Spellman and her mother Sally Ling, food is family. Sally Ling is behind one of the first fine dining Chinese restaurants in America. Her famed spot, named Sally Ling’s was a fixture in Boston, where celebrities like Julia Child and Yo-Yo Ma would feast. As an investment banker, Ling’s daughter Nadia Liu Spellman came to realize she couldn’t leave the family business, or that it woul...